Women and Terrorism

full name / name of organization:

V.G. Julie Rajan and Om Dwivedi

contact email:

vgjulie@rci.rutgers.edu

The Journal of Post-Colonial Cultures and Societies seeks papers exploring the broad dynamic between women and terrorism. In particular, this Special Edition aims to highlight the various forms of agency and subjectivity surfacing from women’s engagement in and demonstration against acts of terror in postcolonial contexts. Terror may be taken to include any extraordinary acts of violence executed at the community through international levels, from caste violence to violence targeting specifically women to official engagements in the war on terror in the post-9/11 era.

Topics might address:

- women members of terror local through international organizations, from the LTTE and the Taliban through Al Qaeda

- women demonstrating against ethnically-based, caste-based, or other socio-economic based forms of violence, as well as reprisals against them for that engagement - women politicians who speak against or support terrorist initiatives

- women who deploy suicide attacks in their own home or Western nations - representations of women terrorists by local media, male-led rebel groups, or governments

- women’s engagement in tribal justice, for example, in the form of enforced rape meted out against girls to fix caste/tribal lines